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Egg Cooking Techniques - Easy-To-Peel Hard-Boiled Eggs, and Perfect Poached Eggs


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Those are both very interesting. The directions for hard-cooked eggs don't quite make sense to me. I'm willing to believe that starting the eggs in boiling water will make them easy to peel, although I'll have to try it before I'll actually believe it. But the author says not to prick them, which more or less guarantees the eggs will crack when they go in. Pricking eggs is not exactly a lot of work.

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Will have to try this.  Of course lately if I have enough time I have just been baking them per the Alton Brown method.  325 for 30 minutes.  I normally am not making them for right then anyway so the extra time normally doesn't matter too much.

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Those are both very interesting. The directions for hard-cooked eggs don't quite make sense to me. I'm willing to believe that starting the eggs in boiling water will make them easy to peel, although I'll have to try it before I'll actually believe it. But the author says not to prick them, which more or less guarantees the eggs will crack when they go in. Pricking eggs is not exactly a lot of work.

He says to put them in boiling water directly from the refrigerator. Perhaps the cold temp of the shell and egg white has some preventive effect against cracking. I haven't tried it, so can't really say, just speculating.

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He says to put them in boiling water directly from the refrigerator. Perhaps the cold temp of the shell and egg white has some preventive effect against cracking. I haven't tried it, so can't really say, just speculating.

That's the way my mother used to make them and what I've gone back to.  She'd get them out of the refrigerator when she put the water on to boil, lower them carefully into the boiling water with a spoon, and then boil for probably 15 minutes, but I can't recall the exact timing now.  I do 13 minutes.  That seems to get them done without giving the green ring around the yolk.

They very rarely crack if you're careful lowering them into the water.  If they slam into the side of the pan or hit the bottom of the pan too hard, they'll crack.  But, they don't crack from the cold egg going into the boiling water.

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We raise chickens at home and always set aside a few dozen eggs for deviled eggs in the fridge. This is done to let them age a bit as a super fresh egg will always be difficult to peel. Along with that I just start with cold salty water and add the eggs and bring to a boil, then cut it off and let sit for about 8 min. This is done with about an inch covering( meaning if you had a lot of water and a few eggs or vice versa you'd adjust your time) of water. Then dump off hot water and run cold on them while peeling, they'll peel easier hot. I tap each end on counter then roll and they pop right off.

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My experience with cooking eggs in the shell in water has been that if you put eggs (whether room- or refrigerator-temperature) into boiling water, they will almost always crack if you don't prick them first. Maybe sometimes they don't, but why not fucking prick them? It takes approximately one second per egg. Is there an argument here that pricking them makes them harder to peel once they've cooked?

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I start them in cold water, then bring to a boil, so I don't worry about pricking them, & I usually try & peel under running water.

But this is the very technique that we're being told to discard in favor of starting the eggs in boiling water in order to make them easier to peel.

Being of an empiricist inclination, I am willing to revise my views in the light of new information. I did a totally uncontrolled experiment a little while ago: I boiled water in a pot, I gently lowered fresh, unpricked eggs into the water using a slotted spoon, lowered the heat to keep the water just below the simmer, cooked the eggs for 11 minutes, and then ran cold water into the pot until the pot and eggs were no longer hot. The eggs did not crack. I've tried doing this before, starting unpricked eggs in boiling water, and they've always cracked. The only real difference is that in those previous experiences I was making soft-cooked eggs, but that intention couldn't have altered the physics of lowering unpricked eggs into boiling water. Neither the eggs nor the water could have been cognizant of how well-cooked I wanted the eggs to be in the moment that the eggs met the water.

I had tested the eggs for freshness using the technique in the other link Zora provided (for poached eggs). I put each egg into a measuring cup of water, and each sank to the bottom and lay flat there, so they were ostensibly pretty fresh (I bought them on Saturday at the New Morning Farm market at Sheridan School). They were both fairly easy to peel, but in spite of that, one of them came out pretty ragged, as you can see in this picture, which is an unfortunately lousy picture: IMG_50701024x768_zpsb3b43e1f.jpg

Even the one on the left is obviously not perfect. What I didn't do, of course, is try starting the eggs in cold water, or starting them in boiling water but first pricking them. There's a limit to how many eggs I want to cook at one time. I ate one of these, but I couldn't have eaten both, and certainly couldn't have eaten more than two.

I'll leave it to another day to try to analyze these results.

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Well--I tried the above technique with four eggs, and had mixed results: one egg cracked and three did not. Turned the actively boiling water down on the lowest possible flame and cooked for exactly eleven minutes before removing eggs and immediately submerging them in a bowl of chilled water and ice cubes. Verdict: peeled cleanly but were not quite hard-boiled. Clearly, the water wasn't maintained at a hot enough temp during the eleven minutes, or more time was needed.

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My experience with cooking eggs in the shell in water has been that if you put eggs (whether room- or refrigerator-temperature) into boiling water, they will almost always crack if you don't prick them first. Maybe sometimes they don't, but why not fucking prick them? It takes approximately one second per egg. Is there an argument here that pricking them makes them harder to peel once they've cooked?

I've never pricked eggs before boilng, and neither did my mother.  I have a hard enough time locating large implements in my kitchen when I need them, let alone something as small as a needle for pricking eggs.  It's just not something I'm going to do, at least with any regularity.  In my experience (and recollection of my mother's), it's pretty rare for the cold eggs to crack when lowered into the boiling water.  The times when I have observed it, the eggs have hit the pan sides or bottom.  If it's ever happened just from the cold/hot reaction, it's an even smaller subset of rare.

When I boil the eggs for 13 minutes before running them under cold water, I keep the water at a boil through the cooking time, though not too vigorous a boil because that can cause them to crack if they flail around too much and hit the sides of the pan.

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Here's another take on it.  Put them in the fridge in water is the "trick" in this one.  The problem I have with that trick is I never plan that far in advance.

How are you guys embedding the videos?  I tried and failed miserably.

That's a remarkable demonstration, and I will have to try this technique as well. The presenter tells us to keep shell-on hard-cooked eggs in water, but doesn't tell us how long. Will an hour do? Ten minutes? Two days?

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When I boil the eggs for 13 minutes before running them under cold water, I keep the water at a boil through the cooking time, though not too vigorous a boil because that can cause them to crack if they flail around too much and hit the sides of the pan.

In my observation, actually boiling eggs gives you a rubbery white and that ghastly green ring around the yolk.

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In my observation, actually boiling eggs gives you a rubbery white and that ghastly green ring around the yolk.

I don't have that problem if I don't boil them too long.  That's how I hit upon 13 minutes and then cold water and/or ice immediately after.  They're about right for me.  The last time I got that ring, I lost track of time and they boiled too long.

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That's a remarkable demonstration, and I will have to try this technique as well. The presenter tells us to keep shell-on hard-cooked eggs in water, but doesn't tell us how long. Will an hour do? Ten minutes? Two days?

In the text below the video, he indicates a couple of hours can work, but the day before use is best.

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What, nobody's mentioning Cooks Illustrated's version?! Put eggs in cold water so that water level is 1 inch above eggs. Bring to a boil then turn off heat and cover pot. Let them sit for 10 minutes then cool in ice bath for 5 minutes. SeriousEats.com says that a 30 minute ice bath is the key to easy peeling. I haven't tried that, yet. The no-boil method is great for a no-green ring hard boiled egg, though.

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not to prick them, which more or less guarantees the eggs will crack when they go in.

I have never priced eggs for boiling, and have never had one crack. But I do start them in cold water. Is that the difference?

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I have completely stopped boiling eggs.  The trick is to steam them, not boil them.  Easy in the extreme.  The side benefit of steaming that I have found is that any egg, no matter how fresh or otherwise, will peel much more easily than if it had been boiled. I don't know why, it just does.

To steam them,  you can use one of those little steam racks if you want to go to the trouble.  I have found it is easier and just as effective to simply put about 1/2 inch of water in the pot and put the eggs in that -- the water should come up about 1/3 on your eggs. No piercing, no nothing. Then put the pot on the heat, and when it boils, cover and steam for 9-11 minutes depending on doneness preference (I like my yolks a bit underdone).  Medium heat is fine; just so the water keeps boiling.  Then simply cool with cold water, and of course crack ASAP to let the sulfur out and avoid the dreaded green ring.  Just don't walk away and forget them while steaming lest the water all boils away and then you have trouble.

Works like a charm.

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What, nobody's mentioning Cooks Illustrated's version?! Put eggs in cold water so that water level is 1 inch above eggs. Bring to a boil then turn off heat and cover pot. Let them sit for 10 minutes then cool in ice bath for 5 minutes. SeriousEats.com says that a 30 minute ice bath is the key to easy peeling. I haven't tried that, yet. The no-boil method is great for a no-green ring hard boiled egg, though.

This is the method Jacques Pepin has recommended for years. I haven't had the dreaded "green ring" since I adopted this way of doing it.

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As to poaching eggs, I used the method described in the video this morning and I have to say that I was impressed! No vinegar, no salt, and it only took a minute or two to produce a  perfectly poached egg that looked really good as well.

Thank you, Zora, for finding and posting that. Works like a charm!

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As to poaching eggs, I used the method described in the video this morning and I have to say that I was impressed! No vinegar, no salt, and it only took a minute or two to produce a  perfectly poached egg that looked really good as well.

Thank you, Zora, for finding and posting that. Works like a charm!

I look forward to trying this poaching method over the weekend, and will share my observations.

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But steaming involves much higher temperatures even than boiling, and boiling in my experience is already too hot to cook eggs.

My experience says otherwise.

Until I discovered the steam method I used the classic "bring to boil, turn off heat, let eggs sit 15 min. method," but steaming just seems to work better. The finished product is excellent.  Peeling is easy. The whites are tender, not rubbery.  There is no green ring.  But getting them out and cooled down quickly is critical, which is true irrespective of cooking method.

It's probably the slightly higher temperature on the surface of the egg that makes the steamed egg easier to peel.  It also slightly reduces the cooking time.

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I decided kind of last minute to hard boil a couple of eggs to go into my salad tonight.  How much do the number of eggs and size of pan have to do with this?  I very rarely boil more than 4 eggs, though sometimes 6, and don't use more than a 2 or 2 1/2 quart saucepan..

Tonight was 2 eggs in my smallest saucepan, which is probably only a quart.  Water brought to a boil.  Eggs lowered in with a tablespoon.  Kept at a medium boil for 13 minutes.  Hot water drained and replaced with cold tap water and ice cubes.  Eggs cracked and peeled a couple of minutes later.  They were completely cooked, with no green ring, and peeled pretty easily (one more easily than the other, but neither had any white pulled off).

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I decided kind of last minute to hard boil a couple of eggs to go into my salad tonight.  How much do the number of eggs and size of pan have to do with this?  I very rarely boil more than 4 eggs, though sometimes 6, and don't use more than a 2 or 2 1/2 quart saucepan..

Tonight was 2 eggs in my smallest saucepan, which is probably only a quart.  Water brought to a boil.  Eggs lowered in with a tablespoon.  Kept at a medium boil for 13 minutes.  Hot water drained and replaced with cold tap water and ice cubes.  Eggs cracked and peeled a couple of minutes later.  They were completely cooked, with no green ring, and peeled pretty easily (one more easily than the other, but neither had any white pulled off).

If you keep them in one layer and use the fill the pan with water 1" over the eggs method the number of eggs doesn't matter. I make a dozen with no problems. That said, I go with the steamer method most of the time.

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Tried the poached egg thing.  It didn't work.  I started with extremely fresh eggs, did they sink? Check. Cracked into a mesh strainer exactly like the one in the video, check.  Drained off the runny white, check.  Water 180 degrees, check.  Poured into the water from a bowl, didn't work.  The whites made little strings and there wasn't enough white to make a beautiful poached egg like in the video.  Mostly a poached egg yolk.  Kept the egg in the strainer and put the strainer in the water and tilted it to the side.  Mostly a poached yolk with a little white, plus I had to scrub congealed egg white from the strainer!

Add this to a long list of video advice I saw on the Internet that did not work, right up there with peeling garlic by shaking it between two bowls.

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Tried the poached egg thing.  It didn't work.  I started with extremely fresh eggs, did they sink? Check. Cracked into a mesh strainer exactly like the one in the video, check.  Drained off the runny white, check.  Water 180 degrees, check.  Poured into the water from a bowl, didn't work.  The whites made little strings and there wasn't enough white to make a beautiful poached egg like in the video.  Mostly a poached egg yolk.  Kept the egg in the strainer and put the strainer in the water and tilted it to the side.  Mostly a poached yolk with a little white, plus I had to scrub congealed egg white from the strainer!

Add this to a long list of video advice I saw on the Internet that did not work, right up there with peeling garlic by shaking it between two bowls.

Watch the video very, very closely and note how the camera cuts away immediately after the egg is placed in the water.  The video never actually shows the white setting up.  Start watching at about the two minute point.

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Actually the egg poached just fine, but there was almost no white.  Some of it dripped through the strainer, and the rest got stuck in the strainer holes.

This perforated spoon might work, but I am reluctant to pay $32 to find out.

We have been eating poached eggs every weekend using a buttered latex bowl, which works well but doesn't provide the beautiful oval with a creamy center as shown in the video.

Edit: it appears to be only $19.95 on Amazon.  For $20, I'll try it.

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For poached eggs, I've recently tried the method in the most recent issue of Cooks' Illustrated. Here, you use a nonstick skillet, add vinegar to the water, bring to a boil, add the eggs to the water using a teacup, remove from the heat and cover for 3-5 minutes. It doesn't make a perfect egg necessarily, but seems to work better for me than the stir-the-pot-of-water method, and the eggs are easy to remove with no excessive strings of white. (The only trick I found is moving the pan off-heat without spilling the water, but that likely would be easy on a flat-surface stove.)

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Actually the egg poached just fine, but there was almost no white.  Some of it dripped through the strainer, and the rest got stuck in the strainer holes.

I finally got around to trying the fine-mesh-strainer method of poaching eggs. I don't know what I might have done differently from Ilaine, but it worked very well for me. I bought fresh eggs yesterday. They were stamped 231; yesterday was 236, so they were packed only five days before. When they were actually laid is impossible to know, but probably only a day or so earlier. I didn't do the "flotation" test as in the video. I cracked the eggs one at a time into a very fine-mesh strainer, let each one drain, and put each one into its own little dish. (I saw immediately the problem Ilaine mentioned above, of lowering the strainer into the poaching water. I don't see how that could possibly work. The egg white would have to cook into the strainer mesh.) I tipped each egg gently into barely simmering water, the temperature of which I did not measure. Two of the three came out almost perfect; the third was pretty good, but I had to trim it a little, as you can see in the pictures (it's the middle egg). You can also see I trimmed it rather clumsily. (These pictures would probably be prettier without the black pepper, but I love black pepper on poached eggs.)

poachedeggs1_zpsd768714a.jpg

With one of the yolks voluptuously broken:

poachedeggs2_zpsa8669b98.jpg

Having just re-watched the video, the big difference between what the presenter did and what I did is that I used a much finer strainer than the one shown in the video. Perhaps that also accounts for my result being different from Ilaine's.

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